Public Intimacy: Dynamics of Seduction in Male Homosocial Interactions

Abstract

Male‐to‐male (homosocial) friendship bonds extend from the public to the private sphere. Relying on in‐depth interviews from a sample of thirty Israeli men sharing a common background of military socialization, this article analyzes how male friends communicate intimacy in public spaces with diverse social and organizational settings. In contrast to the common depiction of men's joking‐relationship as an attempt to maintain autonomy, the author suggests that the homosocial performance is a semi‐arbitrary, ambivalent language of relatedness endorsing closeness. The men participate in humorous interactions involving idioms, nicknames, curses, nonsense talk, aggressive gestures, and embraces. These verbal and bodily expressions send an unclear message that teases the participants and draws them to engage deeper in the interaction, generating a dynamic of seduction. The men's expressive interactions are staged publicly under the guise of instrumental action. It is suggested that although this homosocial staging attempts to erase hints of homoeroticism, it is this very erasure that produces desire as its emergent outcome. Set against the backdrop of instrumental activity, this performance of pleasure serves to empower and privilege male social and organizational networks.

“I Kiss Them Because I Love Them”: The Emergence of Heterosexual Men Kissing in British Institutes of Education

“…In these cultural moments, boys and men who do display physical or emotional intimacy are socially stigmatized and thus homosexualized. They are stripped of their publicly 6 perceived heteromasculinity and, by implication, their power (Kaplan 2006). It is in this institutional context that Kimmel (1994) suggests homophobia is masculinity.…”

Befriending the Other: Community and Male Camaraderie in Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting

“…As Lewis highlights, a man's efforts to meet "traditional male role expectations strongly reinforces his efforts to be competitive, to fear homosexuality, and to avoid personal vulnerability," all of which make "emotional intimacy between men more difficult to attain " (1984: 187). In this situation, humour and aggression -from derogatory nicknames and curses to violent embraces-can serve to produce and validate closeness and affection (Kaplan 2005;Kaplan and Rosenmann 2014). Through this ambivalent language of relatedness, Welsh's male characters engage in what Swain (1989) refers to as "covert intimacy," which signals intimacy or closeness indirectly and often non-verbally.…”

Gender and militaries: the importance of military masculinities for the conduct of state sanctioned violence

“…For Higate (2012), homoeroticism can also help soldiers overcome some of the brutality of military service through a sense of closeness to others. Alongside these analyses, and following Kaplan (2005Kaplan ( , 2006, I want to suggest that desire also plays a central role in facilitating homoerotic rituals: both the desire between (heterosexual) men, and the desire of men to maintain their social and institutional dominance. In order to demonstrate this, it is necessary to examine further how women and sexual minorities have been characterized in militaries.…”